In cloud computing, Google seeks to catch up to Amazon

In the market of cloud computing, Amazon Web Services remains the top player, but Google appears to be intent on closing the gap: Google has named a new leader of its cloud business that caters to companies, which may indicate the company is investing in moving beyond its consumer base, reports The New York Times.

Diane Greene, a Google board member, will oversee Google's cloud business that caters to companies, a move Larry Page, cofounder of Google and CEO of parent company Alphabet, called a "huge new responsibility at Google," according to NYT.

As of the second quarter of 2015, just four companies — Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM and Google — controlled 54 percent of the worldwide cloud infrastructure service market, according to Synergy Research Group. Of that 54 percent, Amazon holds 29 percent of the marketshare, Microsoft holds 12 percent, IBM has 7 percent and Google has 6 percent, John Dinsdale, chief analyst and research director at Synergy Research Group, told InformationWeek.

Though still one of the "big four" companies in cloud computing, Google has some catching up to do.

Ms. Greene is a co-founder and former CEO of VMware, a cloud infrastructure and virtualization software company that is heavily used in corporate data centers. She also founded startup Bebop Technologies which builds new software development technology for writing cloud applications, according to NYT. She will remain on Google's board in addition to serving her new role as senior vice president for Google's enterprise businesses.

While experts say Google has many of the same offerings as its key competitors, it has historically lacked the leadership to make strides in gaining marketshare. "Google is doing all these things [that Amazon is doing in the cloud, like computing, storage and data analytics], but it is not gaining enterprise mindshare," Eric Knipp, an analyst at Gartner, told NYT. "It's not pushing in the enterprise market as much as others."

Ms. Greene will lead those efforts.

"We want to bring together and integrate these technologies in a usable way so companies can move more quickly and make better decisions," Ms. Greene said, according to the report.